


Where Everything Starts

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28935786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: The box was quite small and unassuming, sitting innocently on his desk in the offices of Wolfram and Hart. It promised to ‘bring back what was lost for good’, and while he knew it was more likely to be another demon, rather than anything actually good and helpful, but he had taken all precautions, and he felt like he had to try to work it out. His task was to seek out knowledge, to understand the world in order to better defend it.
Relationships: Faith Lehane & Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2020





	Where Everything Starts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corina (CorinaLannister)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorinaLannister/gifts).



Angel Investigations had good reasons to accept the job offers at Wolfram and Hart, Wesley knew, but it still felt like they do were doing the wrong thing, sometimes. It had seemed reasonable at the time, and he did think they did good here, using the might of the demonic law firm to hamper, rather than help, the demonic influence over the world, but it felt like he was missing something. It felt like they were playing right into Wolfram and Hart’s demonic hands – if they even had hands. There was something wrong, he knew it. Something was missing. It was almost like reality was broken, somehow, or had been altered. Wesley had never been one to let a comforting lie stand in the way of the cold, hard truth. If there was something wrong with reality, he needed to know about it.

The box was quite small and unassuming, sitting innocently on his desk in the offices of Wolfram and Hart. It promised to ‘bring back what was lost for good’, and while he knew it was more likely to be another demon, rather than anything actually good and helpful, but he had taken all precautions, and he felt like he had to try to work it out. His task was to seek out knowledge, to understand the world in order to better defend it.

Which was why he was in his office, trying to open a box that hadn’t been opened in millennia, fully aware that he might be unleashing god knows what on the Earth. He’d do it safely, of course. There were some lines he wouldn’t cross. But he still needed to try.

It was made of pear tree wood, could fit into the palm of his hand, and had not a single fault in it that might suggest it could be opened. To the uninitiated, it looked like a small block of wood. To those who knew magic, it was one of the major mysteries of the times. Many had tried to open it. None had succeeded.

Wesley held it in his palm and thought of all the choices he had made that led him to Wolfram and Hart, the choices taken away from him, the mistakes he had made, the betrayals he had committed and the times he had been betrayed. If he could have another try, if he could get it right this time. If he could live his life again, there were so many things he’d change.

None of those who had tried to open it before had had access to Wolfram and Hart’s archives – Wesley had found it in some corner of some extra-dimensional space gathering dust, and had taken it out, to study, and cross-reference with all the texts he had access to, and his not inconsiderable prior knowledge. He performed various rituals over it, lit incense, soaked it in essences and extracts, but nothing seemed to work. He was just about to give it up for yet another lost cause when a small crack appeared in the box. He picked it up to study closer, and then there was blackness.

*

He was standing in the old library in Sunnydale High School. It looked just as it had in his memories, and he wondered what his subconscious was trying to tell him. He looked down at his fingers – five on each hand. He looked at an open book and read it – a text on Balthazar’s amulet. He wondered why his subconscious had chosen to remind him of that, now. His time in Sunnydale was not one he looked back on with particular pride. He looked away, and looked back. The text remained unaltered. That was the second suggestion that this might not be a dream, after all. A vision, perhaps? Was the box showing him what had been, or what could have been?

There were voices coming from Giles’ office, Giles and Buffy.

“She's freaking. So, so then we just have to help her deal, right?” Buffy said.

“She's in denial. There _is_ no help for her until she admits what happened,” Giles replied, and Wesley realised they were talking about Faith.

“I-I could talk to her,” Buffy said uncertainly, and he tuned out the rest of the conversation. He knew how it went – he’d heard it once before. He reached out an touched the book, feeling it's slightly tough paper under his fingers. If this was a vision, it was an incredibly realistic one. He wasn't dismissing the possibility, but he also must keep in mind that this could be real. That he was, in fact, in the past - that the box had transported him back in time, for whatever reason, be it good or nefarious. Or just an accident. He didn't know. He didn't know if he would ever know. But he still had to deal with it.

This was when it had started. His first mistake. When he had phoned the Council, and Faith had been lost for several years. The mistake that had sent everything cascading. It had led to his dismissal from the Council, leading to his job at Angel Investigations, leading to his finding the false prophecy, leading to his expulsion from Angel Investigations, leading to them accepting jobs at Wolfram and Hart – although, now that he tracked the events back, he realised there were quite a few gaps and things that didn’t make sense. Memory gaps was just the sort of thing the Council would pounce on, and they would keep him away from any possibility to do anything useful. Well, that wouldn’t do. Besides, past experience showed that it had been entirely the wrong choice to call the Council. So he let it be. Let Angel pull her back from the brink, and offer her a chance to atone. The box had indeed brought back what had been lost forever. It had brought back the past, and with it all the potential of choices unmade.

*

While Buffy and Giles were plotting secrets in Giles’ office, Wesley went to read through some books and pretend he hadn’t heard anything. Presently, Angel came in, followed by Faith, looking small and hunched. Angel looked young – even though he hadn’t aged at all during the six years Wesley had known him. But this Angel looked young, carefree, hopeful. He’d been through a lot, true, but not the depths that Wesley’s Angel had been through. He hadn’t been betrayed by his friends. He hadn’t taken over an evil organisation with the goal of taking it down. Right now, Wesley and Angel had known each other for a grand total of three days, and Wesley knew enough to know that he had not made a good impression.

He could turn to the Council. That was an option he had. He hadn’t been cast out yet, and they had procedures for time travellers – it was not the first time something like this had happened, of course. But those procedures tended to be along the line of “welcome them, contain them, extract their information and send them back if possible or keep them contained for the rest of time if not”. He must admit, none of that sounded particularly appealing to him. He also very much doubted that their priorities would be in line with his. There was a time when he would have liked nothing more than to be welcomed back into the fold of the Council. That was a long time ago, now.

*

Wesley started to leave the suits at home. It had been many years since he’d stopped pretending to be his father – it had never worked, anyway. Willow, in an uncharacteristic display of teenage rebellion (or perhaps not so uncharacteristic – he vaguely remembered her saying something about flaying a man and trying to bring about the end of the world in the future), called up a vampire version of herself, who ran amok in Sunnydale. In the previous timeline, he’d been kept out of it, and his grand heroics had been limited to waving a cross at her and threatening her with Holy Water – he hadn’t even made good on his threat, for God’s sake! This time round, he made sure to be in the library when she was captured, and when the others were planning their little ruse at the Bronze, he suggested that he stay behind to watch Vampire Willow, in case anyone came to let her out.

Giles and Buffy exchanged a look that mutually classed him as a coward. Let them. Wesley knew better – he didn’t know how Vampire Willow had been released in the previous timeline, only that she had been, and roamed around threatening to kill Cordelia.

“I guess I’m with lanky and flaily, then,” Faith said. He had absolutely no wish to be alone with Faith and a vampire, but that was not something he could let on. Probably ever. And if Giles was Buffy’s, then he was Faith's. It was slightly less than ideal, that he didn’t fully trust his Slayer, but it was far better than the reverse, he thought. Besides, _this_ Faith hadn’t done anything to him, aside from being slightly disrespectful and rolling her eyes at him.

“I, ah, yes. I’d appreciate the company,” he said.

Giles gave him another funny look, and it only dawned on him after Giles had left that he’d expected him to take umbrage at the nickname. To be honest, Wesley had barely noticed it. He’d been called worse.

*

The others said nothing about Faith and the killing of Allan Finch. They clearly didn’t trust him – and why should they? Experience from the past timeline showed that they were right, he _had_ messed it up before - and rather badly, too. But he had a chance to do better now. For one thing, Faith wasn’t working for the Mayor (as far as he could tell). He hadn’t quite arrived in time to get to the Mayor before his period of invulnerability before the Ascension, more was the pity. Killing a human had sent Faith on a downward spiral – Slayers weren’t meant to kill humans. But the Mayor wasn’t exactly human, and Wesley wasn’t a Slayer. He had no compunctions about killings humans when necessary. They would just have to let him Ascend and kill him afterwards, possibly with less destruction of the school (although he wasn’t ruling it out – the original plan had _worked,_ and there was a great deal to be said for plans that worked, no matter how inelegant they may be). The Scoobies were already beginning to gain the jaded edge of one too many apocalypses. Wesley could sympathise, even if he kept those sympathies to himself. To them, he was still well out of his depth. Or he had been. He was no longer.

Given their secrecy both in this time line and the previous, Wesley could not be sure that Faith had not still gone over to the Mayor’s side, but he felt reasonably confident when she and Buffy handed over the Books of Ascension. Well. That would make things somewhat easier, hopefully. He sent off an expense report to the Council for the reimbursement of 5000 dollars – his Father would gripe about the expense and about Wesley lowering himself to deal with demons, but the Council had paid far more money and engaged in far less savoury activities to get their hands on rare and valuable books before. But of course, those things had not been done by _Wesley_ , and were therefore permissible.

*

He and Giles divided up the books between them, to make for quicker reading. He supposed one should be happy for small mercies – the Books of Ascension were written in English, so there was no need to translate them. They contained a wealth of knowledge about the ritual, the necessary components, and a long list of demons that the Mayor could potentially be planning to Ascend to. Wesley knew which one, of course – but leading the others to the conclusion without betraying the time travel would be tricky.

When the Mayor’s retaliation came, it was remarkably unsubtle – a gang of vampires and demons attacking the library: he’d apparently drawn the wrong lessons from his attack right after the mess with Balthazar and Finch, and decided that the mistake he’d made was in not having enough attackers. Well, the Scoobies were quite happy to disabuse them of that notion. The good thing about the library was that there were plenty of weapons and stakes around, so when he staked a vampire and didn’t pull the stake out in time, watching it disappear in a cloud of dust, he could quickly grab another and get back in the swing of things.

“Hot damn, Lanky,” Faith said when they were done, and all brushing the dust off themselves and seeing to the various scrapes and bruises they’d picked up. “Where have you been hiding _that_?”

The impressed tone of voice, and the fact that he had just demonstrated battle prowess well beyond anything he’d shown in Sunnydale, meant it was quite easy to tell what she was referring to.

“Watchers do go through training, you know,” he said as primly as he could. “I have spent all my life being trained for this. I just had some teething problems, that’s all.”

“Teething problems?” Giles asked with a raised eyebrow.

Wesley shrugged.

“I have come to see that things aren’t as neat as they were in training, or in books.”

It had been a heavy lesson to learn, but by God had he learnt it.

“That’s very observant of you,” Giles said, sounding slightly sceptical. Well. There was nothing Wesley could do to convince him otherwise.

*

Wesley sought Faith out in her motel, and she opened the door with a wary look to allow him to step in. It was, well. Spartan would be a kind word for it.

“I’ve spoken to the Council,” he said. “And they agree with me.”

Faith tensed up.

“You’ve spoken to the Council. About me.”

Wesley could imagine what she was thinking, but since he was still officially in the dark about any extracurricular activities that may or may not have occurred, he pretended he did not.

“Yes,” he said. “Your living conditions are quite unacceptable. A motel is no place for a Slayer, it is simply not safe. While in normal circumstances a Slayer would live with her Watcher, I have convinced the Council that there are those who would get entirely the wrong impression,” – he did not mention that one of the people might be Faith herself – “and so they have agreed to rent a flat of your own for you.”

“No kidding!” she said, with a small smile fighting to break into a big smile on her face. “You’re giving me a flat of my own?”

“Yes. It will likely be quite modest, as the Council prides itself on frugality, but it will be a place of your own to call home, that you can decorate however you wish, and you can use to keep vampires out. There will also be a small stipend. Normally, again, your Watcher would cover the cost of all your needs, but I thought you would not react well to that –”

“You’re right about that,” Faith murmured, and Wesley continued as if he hadn’t heard her:

“– so I convinced the Council to pay it directly to you. There’s no need to tell Buffy – if she makes a fuss the Council may reconsider their decision.”

“You keep surprising me, Lanky,” she said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Wesley cleared his throat.

“Well, this does of course represent a degree of trust that the Council has decided to place on you, and you must reward that trust with responsibility and not squandering it.”

These were words that the Council had asked him to press on her, and he did, although he didn’t think they would do any good. Faith might not be working against the Council, but she was independent-minded, and would not take well to the firm hand the Council was under the impression he was taking with her. She made all the right assurances that she would live up the expectations placed on her shoulders, and he believed her. Mostly.

“Thanks, Wes,” she said, sounding heartfelt. This was an emotion he was unused to from her, and not quite sure how to handle.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

*

Wesley arrived at the library to find it much as it usually was, full of activity, with teenagers sitting on both chairs and tables, and Giles hovering over them leading the discussion together with Buffy. They were in deep conversation, and he took a moment to absorb the view. The Scoobies were the key to Buffy’s success – the Council was wrong about their policy to isolate the Slayer. The Council were wrong about a lot of things, he had come to discover. Still, he shuddered to think what Father would say if he saw this, saw what Wesley allowed to happen under his Watch. He was too big to lock under the stairs now, had been for some time, but he was sure his Father would find an appropriately horrific substitute, if given the right incentive.

Buffy looked up sharply at him.

“Something wrong, Buffy?” he asked.

“Everything’s peachy,” she said, and looked away. “Nothing’s wrong. I just… I just realised that there are a lot of other Watchers we could have had that were worse.”

“Well, thank you for your approval,” he said. He did mean it sincerely, but he was afraid it might have come out sounding slightly sarcastic. He would have to work on that.

Giles gave him a considering look.

That was far too close to what he had been thinking for comfort. It seemed like she was reading his thoughts – he vaguely remembered something about that, and his struggles to not think about – well. He shut that train of thought down with force.

He supposed, in the grand scheme of things, it was fairly harmless, compared to what else she could have overheard him thinking, but it wasn’t pleasant – and he had quite a lot in his past that he would rather not anyone find out about. Forcing himself to focus on one of the most annoying songs he knew that would get stuck on anyone’s minds, he decided to take Faith with him to patrol, even though it was in the middle of the day.

“Why do I get the feeling that this is just to get away from the library?” Faith asked, using an old headstone as a seat to lounge on. “You don’t want B to read your thoughts, Lankenstein? Hiding dirty thoughts?”

“I don’t like feeling on display,” he said. She had earned honesty from him – as much as anyone. She might not know it, but _he_ did. “I can feel uncomfortable with something being widely known without it being dirty.”

“Yeah, I get that. I don’t much like the thought of having someone know everything about me that way.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would.”

“Lots of nasty stuff knocking about up there – wouldn’t want to give her nightmares.”

“Quite.”

She looked at him, most likely wondering what he could have in his head that would give Buffy nightmares - although that was just a guess: he wasn’t the one currently in possession of the power read minds. She didn’t ask, and he didn’t volunteer an answer.

*

With the books, Wesley could steer them in the direction of the Box of Gavrok, and to keep an eye out for its delivery. The ideal would of course be to steal it at the harbour, before the Mayor got his hands on it – but that was not to be. The Mayor’s envoy, while not Faith, was still intimidating enough and skilled enough that both Buffy and Faith were quite badly beaten. It was discouraging.

“I’m sure you’ve been in worse scrapes than this,” Wesley said, trying to cheer them up, while bandaging Faith’s upper arm. “And you got out of those, didn’t you?”

“Well, occasionally I die,” Buffy said. “Or I have to stab the man I love through with a sword.”

“Hopefully the solution this time will be less… traumatic,” Giles said, doing his best to patch up Buffy.

“I don’t know what the hell that demon was, but we need to kill it,” Faith said, sounding angry and frustrated - but Wesley had seen her at her worst, and this was a far cry from being on the verge of a mental breakdown. Just normal frustration about things not going according to plan. “I have never been that badly outmatched. I'm not looking to do it again anytime soon.”

So it was another long night for Wesley and Giles, slogging through dense texts, half of them not even in English, trying to work out the weaknesses of whatever demon was the Mayor’s right-hand man right now.

Morning dawned, with Giles and Wesley having found the demon and could relate its weaknesses (it hunted by scent – and the trick to defeat it was to overpower its sense of smell), and Buffy determined to take the fight to the Mayor. Wesley remembered this conversation, with the lot of them barging ahead, making plans over the map of the town hall, and he trying to stop them, or at least slow them down. This time, he was part of the planning process, offering suggestions and pointing out problems – such as magical protections and mundane alarms, both of which Willow would be able to solve (one with a dispelling spell, and the other with a silencing one). He wasn’t entirely sure about a plan that put so much importance on Willow’s magical skill, but he knew enough not to say so out loud. Instead, he suggested that Willow should be well protected, and they set up a buddy system, Buffy and Angel, and Willow with Faith. It made for nice poetic irony, Wesley thought, that Faith should protect Willow this time round when she’d been instrumental in her capture before.

When they all made it back to the library, Angel and Buffy had the Box, and Faith had Willow, just as planned.

“Any issues?” Wesley asked.

“Wills got into a spot of trouble with some vamps,” Faith said. “Nothing I couldn’t deal with.”

“Well done, Faith,” Wesley said, pleased. This may just be the key to stopping the Ascension, and he was hard pressed to believe it had gone so smoothly.

“No problems,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant in front of Buffy and the Scoobies, but with a twist to her mouth that suggested she was actually quite pleased. “I’m just doing my job.”

“And you’ve done it very well,” he said. He wasn’t about to repeat the mistakes of the past and drive her away. Of course, it wouldn’t do to coddle her – but it also wouldn’t do to never show her that she was appreciated.

“What about me?” Buffy asked with just a hint of a pout.

“You’ve also done well. Don’t you agree, Mr Giles?”

Giles was, after all, still Buffy’s Watcher, as far as Buffy was concerned.

“Ah, yes, quite,” Giles said, taken slightly aback. “Well done, both of you.”

There were no arguments about whether or not to go through with the ritual this time, since there was nothing the Mayor had that they would be even remotely interested in trading the Box for. He remembered how it had been last time. They’d been so righteous in their determination to save their friend and save the day, so reluctant to compromise their morals in any way, so certain that things would work out somehow. He’d found it incredibly frustrating to deal with, and he’d wished they’d been able to see reality for what it was. This time round, he found himself quite reluctant to disabuse them of those notions just yet.

The ritual to destroy the Box was performed. It disappeared in a small puff of smoke, and Wesley couldn’t quite believe that was it. Surely it could not be so simple? There had to be something more to it, surely? Some overhanging danger, some looming threat that they were as yet unaware of? They couldn’t truly have averted the apocalypse, weeks before it was actually due?

They all stood and stared at the place where the Box had been.

“Anyone else feel like that was really anti-climactic?” Willow asked, and several of the teenagers raised their hands.

“Well, it appears to be destroyed. I believe this means the Mayor cannot Ascend, although, of course, we’ll have to remain vigilant, in case there is some loophole we haven’t come across yet,” Giles said.

“I guess that means we won,” Buffy said, with a hint of a question in her voice.

“Guess so,” Faith agreed.

Wesley decided this was the time to bring out something he’d been sitting on for some time.

“I believe you wished to be rewarded with a cookie?” he said, bringing out a packet of biscuits he’d bought for just such an occasion. “I believe you told me that that was Mr Giles’ custom when I first arrived?”

“You may be my second-favourite Watcher,” Buffy said. Wesley fought to contain his grin, but failed.

*

The Mayor scaled up his attacks on them, in revenge, but they all knew that it was just a matter of time – they had to hold out until his 100 days were over, but then, if he couldn’t Ascend, he’d be dead. And without the Box of Gavrok, he couldn't Ascend.

“Are we sure he doesn’t have another Box hidden away as a back-up?” Buffy asked. “The Mayor seems like the type to always have a Plan B.”

“It would be unlikely,” Giles opined. “The Box of Gavrok is a unique item.”

“It is possible that he could obtain the spiders by some other means,” Wesley said. “But, as Mr Giles said, it would be unlikely.”

“Still, we must remain on our guard,” Giles cautioned, and Wesley nodded in agreement.

So they patrolled, and fought off attacks by the Mayor, and tried to hold out until graduation day, when it would finally be over.

They were settling in to a way of working, of relating to each other, discovering a pattern that worked for them. Wesley’s approach to being a Watcher was neither Giles’ softly-softly approach, nor the high-handed demands of his previous stint, but somewhere in between – and he thought Faith responded well to it. She didn’t need to be coddled, she needed to be pushed – but not beyond what she could cope with.

Wesley was getting used to working with Faith, and coming to terms with her, with what he’d done to her in the previous timeline, and what she’d done to her. How they’d gone from trying to work together, to enemies, to actually working together and pushing each other. Except this Faith hadn’t done any of that. This Faith hadn’t tied him up and beaten him within an inch of his life. This Faith hadn’t held up a flamethrower next to his Faith. This Faith hadn’t taken a potentially fatal dose of drugs on his advice. This Faith hadn’t stood up to the potential end of the world. Actually – that was wrong. She had. And she’d gone out and faced darkness every night, on his instructions, and come back to the relative safety of the library. He could see traces of who she would become, the confident and assertive Slayer who was so loyal to those she considered hers. Who had taken on leadership of Angel Investigations to capture Angelus, and who had stood up to Connor to save Angel’s life. He saw more and more of that Faith, and less and less of the one who had tortured him in an attempt to get Angel to kill her.

*

Buffy wanted to go away for college, and leave the Hellmouth to Faith. It was of course a much more reasonable proposition than it had been last time, when Faith had been working against them – but that meant that he didn’t have that excuse for why she couldn’t go. He could hardly say it was because he needed to go to Los Angeles to help Angel and to meet Fred, Gunn and Lorne. He missed them, of course, but he had a duty to the here and now. To Faith, to the world, and to the Council, still. There was a need for a Slayer on the Hellmouth, but there was nothing that said it couldn’t be Faith. He’d changed things, so it was no surprise that things had changed. Wesley would miss out on going to LA. Would, perhaps, never meet Fred, Lorne, and Gunn. Which was a shame, but there had been a bit a distance between them, at the end. He had a vague memory of being kicked out, and there was just a hint of unexplained bitterness that coated his memories of them. Still, he could help out from a distance. Give Angel a few pointers about how to get to Pylea, be there for him on the phone, that sort of thing.

No sooner had the decision been made, than Faith started acting strangely – she was getting sloppy, more so than usual, and disregarding procedure, more so than usual, and acting recklessly, more so than usual.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you, or do I have to guess until I get it right, wasting both my time and yours?” he asked her, after one evening when she came home, having staked three vampires and given herself a broken arm. He splinted it up for her and gave her a sling, even though she’d be more or less back to normal in the morning, which made her a captive audience – no better time to have an awkward conversation.

“Nothing’s going on with me,” she said. “I’m five by five.”

Well, that sealed it. He was observant enough to know that she never used that particular phrase when she was actually feeling wholly content.

“I’m not actually as stupid as I look,” he said.

“Nothing’s wrong, honestly,” she said, sounding almost sincere.

He sighed.

“Well, you don’t have to talk to me. Talk to Angel, or Buffy, or even Giles, if you think it’ll help. Just talk to someone, please.”

“I can’t talk to Buffy about this,” she said. “Or Giles.”

He noticed she didn’t mention Angel.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Because she’s the Slayer,” Faith said, looking at a point on the wall over Wesley’s shoulder. Wesley busied himself with the sling, so she wouldn’t feel like he was staring at he. If he took more time than needed to sort her arm out, well, she wouldn’t say anything even if she noticed. “She’s a hero. I can’t be her, I can’t be the Slayer. I’m not a hero. I’m the Other One. The back-up. The fuck-up.”

Wesley had not expected this crisis of confidence, although, in hindsight, perhaps he should have.

“Bullshit,” he said, tying a knot in the sling. “That’s not true, and you know it. You’re a Slayer, Faith. You wouldn’t have been Chosen if you couldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, well, maybe whoever Chose was drunk that day. Maybe they Chose badly.”

“I don’t believe that, and neither should you.”

*

It took him some time to find an appropriate nest – two Slayers meant that the vampire population was dwindling faster than it could replenish itself, thankfully, but eventually he did find one on the college campus. He took Faith there, just him and her, and let her loose.

“Tell me again you’re not a Slayer,” he said as she emerged, victorious and triumphant.

“That?” she said, shrugging. “That’s just staking vamps.”

She was still riding the post-battle adrenaline rush, but would probably come crashing down soon. And that was when Wesley would catch her, and lift her back up.

“It’s not ‘just’ staking vampires,” he said, voice low and intent to get across his sincerity, how much he needed Faith to believe in what he was saying. “That’s where everything starts. That’s what being a Slayer is. Everything else stems from this.”

“I dunno, man,” she said doubtfully, and that would be the receding of the adrenaline. “I still think it might be too much.”

“Is this your breaking point?” he asked. “After everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve done, everything you’re capable of? Is this what finally breaks you? Or are you stronger than that?”

“What I’ve done? You have no idea what I’ve done, or what I’m capable of,” she said darkly.

Wesley would beg to differ. He might even have a better idea than Faith herself of what she was capable of, both good and bad.

“Is this about Allan Finch, or is there more I supposedly don’t know?” he asked.

She stopped walking.

“You know about Finch?” she asked incredulously.

“I do.”

“Why didn’t you do anything? Tell the Council, lock me up, _anything_? Don’t you care that I’ve killed?”

“If I barged in ham-fisted and started throwing my weight around, would that honestly have helped anything? You didn’t trust me, and I had no chance of getting you to see reason, or to subdue you in a fight. I kept an eye on the situation, but it seemed like Buffy and Angel had it sorted, and I didn’t need to intervene.”

“So, you just let it go? Decided to ignore it? I’m a murderer.”

“No. You’re a killer.”

“Like you know the difference,” she snorted.

“I do,” he said simply.

She looked at him searchingly for a moment, probably trying to decide if she believed him or not.

“You’ve got hidden depths, Wes,” she said at last.

“As do we all.”

“Somehow I think yours are deeper than most. I think I’m looking forward to finding out.”

“You can think what you like. As long as you think it while protecting the Hellmouth. For instance from that vampire right behind you.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” she said twirling around and jumping at the vampire. She hadn’t called him boss last time round. He’d take the win.

*

“There’s a package delivered to you,” Giles said, as Wesley arrived to the library the day after Graduation Day to pack up books, deciding which ones should stay with Wesley on the Hellmouth, and which ones should go with Giles to Chicago.

He didn’t know of anyone who would send him parcels at Sunnydale library. It was fairly small, and as he opened it, a small block of pear wood clattered onto the table.

“Is that…” Giles asked.

“It would appear so.”

“Why was it sent to you?”

“I cannot possibly imagine.”

Was it a sign? Was the sender suggesting he use it again? He didn’t even know what he had done in the first place. Or that he keep it safe?

Gingerly, he found a cloth to wrap it up with, not wanting to touch it. He had his second chance – there was no point in trying to go back, over and over. You had to live with the reality you had. He had gotten back what he thought had been lost forever – hope, friendship, and a purpose. He would probably always miss Fred – he thought there might be something there, now that she and Gunn had broken up. And he would miss Gunn, and Angel, and Lorne, who he had been through so much with. But he had Faith, and his duty to her, now. He would probably spend the rest of her life, or the rest of his, making up for what he had done (he was well aware of the average longevity of both active Slayers and active Watchers, but if he had anything to say about it, they would both be very long lives indeed). He knew that as time went on, his knowledge would become more and more useless – it was already beginning, with his remaining in Sunnydale rather than joining Angel in LA, but the ripple effects of what he had already done would continue to spread. The threats he knew to expect would fail to appear, and new ones would rise in their place. He needed to face the future as it was, not as it could have been.


End file.
